Užice

Užice is 2 hours southwest of Belgrade. I know that because I did that drive solo in my rented Skoda. It’s a small town. I heard that several times during my visit. A “small town.”

Let me tell you all the amazing things about that small town. Teenagers are playing basketball on the outside courts at 10:30 at night. Students mingle non-stop in the plazas outside of school. And they mingle together. Everyone knows everybody. The amount of ‘Ciao’s’ there are on the street or at the café you can’t count on one hand. I’ll get to another local rule later, but if I had to make a rule for this – 5 hellos every hour. I was in the car with my colleague, and not once, but twice, the window was rolled down to say hello to someone.

Another thing that you may expect: Everybody smokes cigarettes. Inside, outside, in the car, at the house. Basically, everywhere except inside the office. You are not allowed to smoke during the first hour of the day or last hour of the day, but outside of that, cigarette breaks are frequent. The aforementioned rule they do have – “one coffee, three cigarettes.” I made a joke to my colleagues and now friends – “when in Rome, do as the Romans do.” So my rule while I was there was “one coffee, one cigarette.” I’m not going to say it was lovely, but it was lovely because that is how you feel part of the community in Užice. This unbelievably connected community.

This small town has a way of life that is so clear and so visible, it made me sick because of how good it was. You look around the streets and you see people’s eyes and people’s faces. Nobody wears airpods. And I mean, nobody. My same colleague who knows everybody said he doesn’t do it for two reasons – a) crossing the street he wouldn’t feel safe if he couldn’t hear everything – driving is a little funky there and b) he would have to take them out to say hi to everybody. It’s so pleasant to feel and see that. So so pleasant.

Comparing that to the Metro North commute (and New York city streets) is mind-numbing. And I realize that’s a reach – once we were in Belgrade, some big city lifestyle trends came into the picture. But I think, and I’m not exaggerating, 90 out of 100 people on the Metro North daily commute are wearing airpods. This gentlemen recently sneezed next to Miles (who was sitting right next to him), and Miles said “bless you.” Our 2 year old said bless you. And the 30 something year old was so deep staring into his phone with airpods in he didn’t hear anything. I had to tell Miles “he didn’t hear you buddy but that’s really nice.” In Užice, not only would that person hear Miles, they would look at him, smile, say thank you, and talk to the parents. Knowing the tight knit Užice community, they would probably know the parents.

Užice is and was an incredible reminder of the power of people. The power of community. I think it’s easy to say “it’s better here” when we live in the US. Really easy. We have everything, right? Wrong. We don’t have a sense of community [anymore].

I’m going to miss learning how to ask for the check in Serbian, say Ciao for hi and bye, say Hvala for thank you, and all the rest of it. Will I miss the Parliament 100s with my coffee? Less so – don’t worry Don and Diana.

I think Serbia is a misunderstood country. It has a rich and storied history. You can read about it if you want. https://hekint.org/2026/03/26/serbia-history-war-and-medicine/

But somewhere and somehow, I think there is some pathway and alliance between Italian Jews (myself) and those people from Serbia. Because man, I love the way they go about their daily life. And their appreciation for one another.

Užice, you will be dearly missed.